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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27714485">Sunday</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenAppleBubblegum/pseuds/GreenAppleBubblegum'>GreenAppleBubblegum</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:42:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,988</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27714485</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenAppleBubblegum/pseuds/GreenAppleBubblegum</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sunday</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sunday wasn’t there yet.<br/>
She had come for groceries, she reminded herself, ankle deep in the leaves of the dead quiet street. No one came through this part of town, not since the flood had drowned the highway, but her mother herself and her sister would each starve soon. Ever since Winter made his home in their backyard, and cleared all the petals from the roses... that very old man was nothing but malice. She never could decide which she liked less, the way he trapped stray cats in his little brass cages, or the waterlogged toys he left in their mailbox. There was nothing to do about Winter though, as there was nothing to do about the common cold, nothing to do about a fall. You could only hope they'd be over with, and sooner, rather than later. Well here she was, basket in hand, list in the pocket of her jacket. No matter how hard she stared, she could never read the grocery list, but she could get it right more often than not. All she needed was to search, to pry, and poke around in this husk of a place. Find food, and maybe toothpaste, before Winter could drag their slightened bodies into the graves he dug. If they could just outlive the famine, surely he would lose interest, and find another place to haunt.<br/>
So Sunday took the red brick out from her basket, and peered through the windows, to gauge which might have sliced bread, oregano, or maybe even iced tea, if she was lucky. Middleton Street had a strange air about it, like a room recently occupied. Sunday had never known someone to live there, but it seemed there must have been, and only just a moment ago. Outside a weathered townhouse, garage adorned with a basketball net, a small bicycle lay on the asphalt. One wheel still slowly spun, as though it had only just been dropped. But none had ever lived here, not in the years since the flood. There was never a shade in the crook of a doorframe, slipping away when she turned to look. Never the creaking of weight on floorboards, or the echo of a whisper. Just a sense, so faint she thought she might have imagined it, like a long, cold hand, on the back of her neck. The unshakeable sense that surely there must have been someone, here, just a moment ago. At least there was food, though. Search long enough, and one might find a loaf of rye, abandoned but not stale on a well-worn cutting board. Two cans of beans, hiding in the darker corner of a pantry's top shelf. A refrigerator that could still light up, hollow save for a box of premade pizza, entombed in the frost of a freezer drawer.<br/>
Chelsea, her sister, should have been near as well. It was her turn to run ahead to the further bend of Middleton Street, ending in Old French Park, while Sunday searched by the crumbling marsh of metal and concrete that once was the highway. They both carried a basket, a brick, and a little box of matchsticks. Their mother would stay home, to keep watch over things, while the sisters went to scavenge. And today was just another of the like.<br/>
Sunday kicked at the withered brown leaves, cloying at her feet, and marched ahead to the three story backsplit, with the roof gabled in black wood, and the front door painted the colour of ashes. A little stone cherub sat by the edge of the porch, like a poor excuse for a gargoyle. Its mouth was carved just slightly open, its eyes distant and despondent. It was certainly not the sort of thing Sunday would greet her guests with. She tried the front door, which was always worth a shot, even if it had never worked for her. Chelsea claimed she'd found an unlocked house, though she also said she knew morse code, and saw shapes in the night crawling through the fields outside the factory. So, it was time for the brick then.<br/>
Sunday took a step back from the front window, and wound it back with her good arm. With the confidence of having done this many times before, she flung the brick with enough force to slide clean through the buckling glass. She heard a clutter as it dented the floorboards beyond, and watched shards drip like icicles from what was left of the window. Soon, she was inside, and breathed in the must of a dead house. The den, in which she found herself, held a couch, armchairs and a coffee table, each in orbit around the television, resting on a rug the green of the woods at sundown. Sunday wondered if it was just the way the pale sunlight struck, or if really, the television gave a residual glow. But she brushed the thought aside; this was nothing new to her. And besides, the flowers in the vase could not have been watered any time recently, and not a single sound here did not come from Sunday. She tugged at the edge of her skirt, and collected her nerves, pressing forward into the silent halls. Or rather, what should have been silent halls.<br/>
As Sunday stepped past framed portraits, faded to nothing, mementos, lined with dust, checking for the kitchen, she stumbled to a stop. From above, there came a sound. It trickled faintly down the hall, like, music perhaps. Sunday felt her stomach turn, and tighten. There had scarcely been a sound on Middleton street, and truly never music. And she hesitated. She didn't like the thought of it, but it didn't seem malicious. It was only... strange. After careful consideration, she decided to inspect. And for the very first time, she crept, careful to be quiet. She found her way toward the music, doubling back to the front door at the base of a narrow stairway. She tread lightly up the hardwood, wincing at a creaking step. But she heard no response. Only the sound, which soon enough, she could parse. Rarely did Sunday see the second, or third floor of any of these houses. She came for the kitchen, and the pantry or the cellar, after all. These bedroom doors were strange territory. But from inside the red door, with the gnarled brass handle, came the music.<br/>
It was tinny, and slightly contorted with age, it seemed. Horns, strings, and a clanking piano, recorded what must have been long ago, Sunday thought. But it wasn’t a song, really, at least not a whole one. Just a piece of one. She could hear it in the end of the hall; maybe a few seconds, before the melody choked and repeated itself. A broken record then, caught in one phrase, one line from the rest of the script. The song itself was dissonant, the few notes that played were not easing Sunday’s hesitation. She hoped it was only a distortion of the original piece. She couldn’t understand why someone would listen to this. Come to think of it, had someone been listening? Who had set it to play, why had no one fixed it, and…<br/>
Sunday pressed a hand to the wall, and to her head, when the dizziness hit. Just the thought of, whatever was happening with Middleton Street, made her sick somehow. Was she forgetting something? She feared she must have been. But, the harder she focused on her confusion, the more she felt she was losing her grip on things. She shook her head, and tried not to think any more of it for now. She wished Chelsea was with her then. She didn’t like to admit it, but sometimes she wondered if she’d just ask her sister, to come with her for once. It wouldn’t be efficient, and Sunday reminded herself there wasn’t anything fearsome about an empty house, but the company might at least put her at ease.<br/>
The music still played. What had she been doing? Yes, going to investigate. That was something to focus on, a task, to keep her from thinking of things she’d rather not. Sunday slipped through the dark, with only ambient light from the windows below to see the edges of the walls, and the door. When she found it, she noticed, it was open by just a margin. That wasn’t inherently suspicious, she told herself, although it had been the only open door in the building. She pushed it open slowly, and again, there was that sensation. A cold something, like a hand feeling blindly around, brushing down her neck to between her shoulders. It was such a specific image, clear in her mind, but it must only have been instinct. Her instinct told her that someone, or something, had been here just before her. But there was no one there, only a dusty bedroom, cut through with the looping song.<br/>
Wisps of sunbeams spilled through the slats of the shuttered window. They lay fast asleep across the sunken bed, and the small table that held the record player. There were no other doors to the room; again, no one could’ve been there without Sunday knowing. She tread lightly over to it, almost anxious she might disturb the place, but found nothing strictly wrong. It was only a little machine, doing what it was built to. Well, it was trying, anyway. She tried to recall how these things worked. And, once she was sure, she pushed a button. It clicked, the needle rose from the record, and there was silence.<br/>
Sunday felt relieved, at first, the unsettling music gone. But then, something almost like guilt, rose up in her throat. As if she had been impolite. As if she had interrupted. As if she had been caught.<br/>
The record player, needle raised, made a noise. Rasp, like a cough, like a hiss. “You,” said the record player, and Sunday jumped. She froze then, in a panic, her voice nowhere to be found. “You have been found, you trespass.” Its voice was not like a person’s, its words not something one could say. Sunday did not hear them, she read them. She couldn’t describe its voice. When it spoke, it was like remembering the words, written in a book she’d forgotten. “You are, unwelcome. You stand before, yourself. Blessings, none. State your name, hurry.”<br/>
She opened her mouth, speechless. She could feel impatience in the air. “Sunday,” she mustered, after a moment.<br/>
“Your name is old,” it replied, harshly. “It should not, you do not deserve. Glad you don’t remember.” Whatever it meant, she couldn’t tell. “You do not dance with song.”<br/>
“What… what are you saying?” Sunday was afraid. She didn’t understand why she felt so exposed. Why she dreaded what the machine would say next. Much less did she understand what was going on.<br/>
“Correction, spoken outside of turn. Say it again. You are the villain, you are accused. You are the intruder, on our home. The thief, we remember.”<br/>
“Your home? Thief?” No one lived on Middleton Street. It had been empty, since forever and before. Why did this seem familiar, she wondered. It was like she had read the script, and could faintly recall which line came next. “The food…?”<br/>
“Apricots, canned, muffins, dozen, champagne, fake.”<br/>
“I, we were starving! We are starving! We, we didn’t mean to, we didn’t have a choice!”<br/>
“No.” Silence fell. It was then that Sunday noticed, the room was dark. The light from the window was blue, and shallow. The day had been replaced with the night, when she wasn’t looking. “Repentance, unacceptable.”<br/>
“I, I’m sorry, I thought no one lived here.”<br/>
“Living is false. We are the country.”<br/>
“I don’t know… I don’t understand. Can… can you forgive me? I’ll go, I’ll never come back.”<br/>
“Falsehoods. Theft. Punishable.”<br/>
Sunday was desperate. She knew somehow, what was coming. The feeling on her neck had changed; it was not a hand reaching blindly, it was clasped. Cold as ice, and heavy, wrapped tight around her. What had only just left the room was back, it had found her, and it was furious. “Please, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”<br/>
“The music is broken. The kitchen is broken. The window is broken. We do not appreciate, you. Punishment is decided.” The voice paused. Sunday could feel the silence, and it was getting louder. “A show, is made. An example. You know, you do not remember. You will learn. Reprimand, deserving. An example.”<br/>
Sunday thought of running, but worried that wouldn’t help. “Please,” she said, her voice fickle.<br/>
The record player was louder, now, although it spoke in remembered words rather than any real sound. “A compliment, two of a pair. A hammer for a chisel. An eye for an eye.”<br/>
“What?”<br/>
“This all is so old. We remember the name, of course. Chelsea, the other.”<br/>
“Wait, what, no! Not Chelsea, please no, she didn’t do anything!”<br/>
“An example, we warrant this. Jury is dead, and gone. You always learn, someday. You always know, we know. You always forget, we are sick of this.”<br/>
Sunday was ready to speak, although she didn’t know what to say, but she stopped when she felt it. As if everything pulsed, and shouted at once. Something had happened.<br/>
“We are done. It is done. An example.” The record player repeated its hiss, and went silent, like a phone call abruptly cut. Sunday waited, for a moment, and remembered Chelsea. Now was time to run, she decided.<br/>
This time, as she passed through the old house, dark save for feeble moonlight, she could see them; the things she thought must have been there. They were shadows, but solid, and slick. Like echoes of people sliced from dark corners, the bottoms of wells, the basement in the middle of the night. They crammed together in the doorframes, faceless shapes, watching Sunday run. Out the windows, she could see them, crowding the doorsteps and front yards of Middleton Street. Silent, watching, people-shaped slabs of black. Judgemental, and still. It seemed as though they waited. In anticipation, for Sunday to find her sister, for her to know what had happened. When she reached the front door, a piece of darkness was sitting in the den. It was watching the television, turned to a dead channel, and it turned in its chair to watch her. It didn’t have eyes, or a face.<br/>
Sunday tried the door. It was already unlocked. And on the other side, Chelsea was waiting. Her basket was gone. Her expression was terror, blended with exhaustion. Sunday was just happy to see her.<br/>
“You’re alive, I thought maybe, I’m sorry! Are you…” she would have asked, are you okay. But she saw it then, Chelsea’s hand clutched to her stomach, soaking in her blood. Chelsea tried to speak, but only exhaled, and crumpled through the doorway. Sunday did her best to catch her.<br/>
They both were silent. The colour was gone from Chelsea. Sunday didn’t think you could bleed so fast, and she wasn’t sure what to do aside from sob.<br/>
“Why,” Chelsea said, quiet as melancholy.<br/>
Sunday didn’t understand.<br/>
“Why is it always like this?”<br/>
“Chelsea?”<br/>
“Always like this…”<br/>
“Chelsea, what, what do you mean?”<br/>
There came no reply.<br/>
“Chelsea?”<br/>
Chelsea’s eyes were closed. Her lips did not move.<br/>
Sunday stood. She shook her head. This wasn’t okay. She wasn’t going to let it end like this. She didn’t know what was happening, but maybe she could do something?<br/>
She remembered as much as she could, and it occurred to her, how confusing it all was. Record players couldn’t speak. She didn’t remember yesterday, or really much of anything. What had happened to Middleton Street? Who, or what were the shadowy things? What did Old French Park look like? And Winter, who was he, and... and the dizziness was back. Sunday toppled, and only just caught herself on the bannister before her head came crashing into it. The sense was gnawing away at her, like everything was degrading, like the world was a shoddy replica of a replica. A copy, or, a repetition.<br/>
“Repetition,” she murmured, to herself. The record player, everything had gone wrong when she stopped it from looping. Maybe she could still fix things. It was the only idea she had, if it could be called an idea. She was sure of it.<br/>
Sunday pulled herself up from the floor. She was surrounded, she realized. Dozens of shadow things stood in the halls of the house now, staring silent at her, and her sister’s body. She grit her teeth, and made for the stairs. She may have been in denial. But nothing made sense here, anyway. All she knew for sure was that her sister was dead. And she wasn’t going to allow it.<br/>
She would have shoved past the shadows, but they let her pass. That being said, they followed, always coming closer behind her when out of sight.<br/>
When Sunday found the room, behind the red door with the brass handle, it was waiting.<br/>
“No,” said the record player.<br/>
Sunday didn’t listen. She ran her hands through her hair, trying to recall the process.<br/>
“Do not.”<br/>
It was the needle, she had to move it back to the edge of the disc.<br/>
“She is dead. It is done. Leave.”<br/>
She placed it carefully down.<br/>
“You cannot change things, your sister is gone. Leave.”<br/>
She was ready, it was ready. It was all she could think of.<br/>
“NO.”<br/>
Sunday pushed the button down.<br/>
The record began to play again, in the room behind the red door, although Sunday wasn’t there yet.<br/>
She had come for groceries, she reminded herself, ankle deep in the leaves of the dead quiet street. No one came through this part of town, not since the flood had drowned the highway, but her mother herself and her sister would each starve soon.</p>
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